Bar that served this drunk mass shooter is being sued by families of his victims

Spencer Hight, 32, killed eight people at an Atlanta Falcons football watch party at his estranged wife's home in Plano, Texas on Sept. 10, 2017.
KTVT
Video screenshot

Spencer Hight had at least a .33 blood alcohol concentration when he walked into his estranged wife's home in Plano, Texas on Sept. 10, 2017 with an AR-15 rifle and gunned down eight people who had gathered there to watch football before being killed by police.

A Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission report says that was Hight's BAC at the time of his death.

Now family members of three of his victims are suing the bar he visited twice that day, before the shooting, according to KTVT.

The family members say Lindsey Glass, the bartender who served Hight two gin-and-tonics, two beers and a shot of vodka that day, is partly to blame for the deaths of Darryl William Hawkins, Caleb Seth Edwards and James Richard Dunlop. They were at the home of Hight's estranged wife Meredith, who was also killed in the massacre.

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"If right decisions had been made, my son would still be alive," Glenda Alexander, Edwards' mother, told WFAA. "There's nothing worse than being a mom and having to identify your child."

The bar and the home are located just three blocks apart from one another.

According to the suit, and to a report from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, Hight went to the Local Public House for the first time on Sept. 10, 2017 just after 2:30 p.m. Glass served him two gin-and-tonics, which he drank before leaving just before 3 p.m.

He returned to the bar just after 6:30 p.m., this time visibly intoxicated, the report said.

"Hight was unsteady on his feet and staggered around the bar, running into tables and walking sideways," according to the TABC report.

Then, the report says, he pulled out a large knife and spun it around on the bar, making remarks about "putting someone in their place" and "taking care of some dirty work."

A text exchange between Local Public House bartenders Leslie Glass and Timothy Banks
Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission

Glass was alarmed enough to contact a friend of Hight's, who was also a bartender at Local Public House, but still served him a shot and a beer after he spun the knife on the bar. He "almost falls out of his chair as he takes the shot," the report says.

During a conversation with Glass on the bar's patio, Hight pulled out a .380 caliber pistol, presumably the same one he would later carry to Meredith Hight's house, according to the report.

The second bartender, Timothy Brandt Banks, then contacted Jerry Owen, one of the bar's owners. It was Owen who told Banks not to call the police, TABC investigators say.

When he got to the bar, Banks asked his boss if he should "tackle" Hight, but Owen told him to let Hight go, the report says. Hight drove away from the bar just after 7:30 p.m. with a BAC more than four times the legal limit

Glass and Local Public House are the only defendants listed in the families' lawsuit, though the civil complaint also alleges that Banks and Owen played roles in allowing the shooting to happen, the Dallas Morning News reported.

The families are seeking more than $1 million in damages for what it calls "gross negligence."

Surveillance video shows the moment a gunman opened fire on Indiana police officers with an AR-15 assault rifle. Police said the gunman, who was shot and later died, was aiming at police officers and police cars. No officers were injured.

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